


Dark Paradise

by Enzuri



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Bulges and Nooks, M/M, New Karkat, Nooks, Rainbow Drinkers, Sweeps in the future, Tentabulges, descendent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:31:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enzuri/pseuds/Enzuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Eridan Ampora and all you'd wanted to be was together, was that too much to ask?</p><p>Your husktop chimes and you don't bother to check the message, it's probably Kanaya. It's definitely Kanaya because she's the only one who knows your trollian handle. She's also the only one still alive other than you. She's probably messaging you to ask you not to return to Alternia. You told her before you got on the ship that you wanted to experience it in all the beauty she once did, before. It's not the first time you'll be on the planet's surface since your change but it will be the first time your think pan will be thinking clearly.</p><p>You never would have thought forever could make you feel this empty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> This... this is what happens when I listen to Dark Paradise by Lana Del Ray on repeat for hours. Enjoy guys.

Your name is Eridan Ampora and all you'd wanted to be was together, was that too much to ask?

Your husktop chimes and you don't bother to check the message, it's probably Kanaya. It's definitely Kanaya because she's the only one who knows your trollian handle. She's also the only one still alive other than you. She's probably messaging you to ask you not to return to Alternia. You told her before you got on the ship that you wanted to experience it in all the beauty she once did, before. It's not the first time you'll be on the planet's surface since your change but it will be the first time your think pan will be thinking clearly.

You never would have thought forever could make you feel this empty.

It's been more than a thousand sweeps since the last of your friends died. Feferi was a great empress, this new blood seems to following in her footsteps okay but you don't really pay attention to any of that shit now. You'll live through all the ages, the good empires and the bad, eternally watching. It seemed like such a romantic concept once, you can see why it fascinated Kanaya so but you've grown so tired of it all. You're as pale for the jadeblood as you've ever been but she's the only person you ever really speak with anymore and she doesn't feel the same. For her eternity is just enough, drifting from universe to universe, tasting the rainbow spectrum that just gets more and more diverse with each generation spent out in space.

She didn't mean to doom you to this life with her, not that she minds it, having an eternal companion to converse with. You'd never tell her how hollow and empty it makes you feel. How much you wish you could just go to sleep and never wake up like all of your friends before you. You don't want to put that on her head, having her know how miserable this has all made you. Especially since the first hundred sweeps or so you'd been pretty excited about the whole thing. But that was before they all started dying, your friends that is. 

Something had seemed off that night, when she was messaging you at an unusual hour for her. Plus her words were garbled and her normal capitalization was missing. It was so unusual that you'd hoped in a shuttle to her hive, despite the late hour and the impending sunrise. It never once occurred to you that her, at that time, fairly recent metamorphosis into a rainbow drinker could have anything to do with it. It did. She was still getting used to everything and she'd starved herself by accident. You learned that the hard way when you got to her door and didn't have a chance to say a word before she was pulling you inside, teeth buried in your neck. 

You spent three days screaming into the darkness that had taken over your vision, every muscle on fire.

When the shadows left it was to blind you with the daylight that had always burned you before. Instead it warmed you, welcomed you into a body that was once yours but was now something more, something made of sunlight and dead flesh. everything was so bright but it gleamed in a way that you never could have imagined before. It's like everything has its own subtle glow. Especially living things. You'll never need to enquire after someone's caste again, you can see pulsing vein glowing faintly in necks and wrists that tell you themselves.

Everything also smells amazing and it takes a few perigees of Kanaya's training before you don't feel the need to pounce on anything with a working bloodpusher. All the time you two have to spend together solidifies something that you had always sort of suspected, even before the falling out between yourself and Feferi. The two of you are in the diamonds quadrant. Your other friends realize the change right away when they see you, your skin pale like your new moirail and you sometimes forget to turn off the luminescent ability you've been gifted. 

Karkat calls you an idiot for it but that's okay because he always called you an idiot. You'd thought that maybe the change would have given you more confidence when it came to the object of your flushed affections but it didn't. He always seemed to have his sights set on someone else and with you figured you had time to spare, to gain the confidence to woo him. Except, you're the only one that earned immortality.

He wasn't the first of you to die but his was the hardest death. He took a part of you with him, leaving a void in his place. Kanaya decides that Alternia is not the place for you and takes you on a tour of the universes that the Empress had added to her collection. You both get reckless, tasting everyone you can, drinking in the sweetness it all, drunk on the security having a dead bloodpusher brought. So many trolls, day after day, piles of grey flesh and candy coloured horns. You don't kill all of them, you don't very many of them at all. Most of them don't remember their nights of pailing and feeding if you do your job right, which you do. After all you get more practice at it than anyone would have every imagined. Eridan Ampora was now the irresistible sex god that you always knew you were.  
   
Then, even though you hadn't spoken to her in a long time, when Feferi passed things changed again. She was the last of your friends and even Kanaya seemed affected by it. Not that the other's hadn't effected her but now gone was your wriggler's generation entirely. She got more reckless, more insistent that her way of life, taken from her books, was the right way. Parties were only an occasional things now but she didn't form attachments to anyone. Neither did you for that matter. That void in your frozen bloodpusher just got bigger and bigger.

So you're headed back to Alternia. It's been so many sweeps since you've seen it but the moment you spot it outside the ship's window you know that you're going home. It's not as populated as it once was. At some point in your roaming you knew that there's been a huge influx down here but now it was something a little closer to what you remembered. Even your hive was still where it was before and unoccupied. Well that makes sense, the drones would have left it alone since you hadn't been reported as dead yet. Everything inside needs a good cleaning and you kind of would rather just burn it all so the memories they all hold would go away. You just clean instead and it's not long before it looks like you never left. You pass by a mirror and realize you look the same still too and you break the offending piece of glass. All those sweeps and you still look barely older than a wriggler.

You mope about in your hive for at least a week before you remember you need to fill your time with something, anything. You head out to a nearby library, figuring you'll research some of the things you used to love. History seems to hold something different now that you're living through it. You stop at a coffee shop after your library trip, the chair opposite full of the books you ended up taking out. It's then that you see him.

He's a ghost, stubby horns, wild hair, and a frowning mouth all wrapped up in a short package. It's Karkat. Your bloodpusher gives an awkward, unused stutter. Even his nametag reads Karkat when he comes up to take your order. The only difference is that he's got his symbol in bright red, after Feferi took over she eliminated the law that culled mutants and brought them out of hiding. He arches his eyebrows and asks if you plan on ordering anytime soon in the same rude wording that you would have expected from the angry Cancer in your past.

You inform him his name can't be Karkat and he just rolls his eyes and states that it was his ancestor's name and he is more than entitled to use it as his own as well. He asks what the big deal is anyway and you blow off your strange moment by saying you were just surprised since Karkat was the known mutant in history, after the Sufferer. This strange clone claims he doesn't care about history and just wants to know your drink order. You pick the first thing off the menu and get refills of it, watching the ghost until closing time sends you home.

You finish the books quickly, reading them out in the sun. Kanaya was right, it really was lovely out here in the light. Well at least it is now that it won't kill you. You don't need as much sleep as you once did and for the first time in a long time you look forward to waking up.

It becomes a habit for you, going to the library for as many books as you can carry and then spending the rest of the day at the coffee shop. Karkat number two aways makes fun of you but he starts to join you on his breaks and asks questions about his ancestor and his ancestor's friends, especially once you get into how was in who's quadrant when. It makes him open up about his friend's drama as well. He's just a much of a gossip fiend as the original was.

You're surprised to find how easy it is with him. Some days you forget that it's not really your Karkat and you say things that he doesn't understand, like when you launch into a story about Feferi's adventures in the deep or Nepeta's shipping wall. It's times like those that he looks at you strangely, eyebrows furrowed as he tries to figure you out. You haven't told him what you are yet. You almost did, asking him if he believed in rainbow drinkers, after he mentioned a film about them. He just laughed it off, claiming them to just be monsters made up to scare small wrigglers. You'll let him hang onto that innocence. 

Some days you wander the old neighbourhoods when the sun's come up and the trolls of Alternia are tucked away safely in their recuperacoons. You find Kanaya's old hive, also unoccupied because neither of you are dead in the drone's records yet. You manage to get inside, she never did move that old spare key, and you explore each room without her. It's eerie to see everything looking so similar but so hollow. It's as beautiful as you remember. Some days you come here instead of going home, to read your books. You take the time when you're here to message Kanaya and it's almost like you're both together again, when you're here in her home. You tell her about everything and she seems so relieved which makes you feel guilty for worrying your moirail. She encourages you to spend time in her old hive. It's peaceful in a way you don't know if you've ever been before. Even with the groans of the undead coming from the forest that surrounds you. They're no match for you anymore anyway. 

It's in your wandering one dawn that you realize you're in Karkat's old neighbourhood. You can see where his hive once stood, the hive was demolished when he died, the land given to some other young troll to build up on. Whoever lives there now has no taste. Not that many of you did when you were little like that but still, they've covered it haphazardly in any colour they can. Something about it reminds you of Terezi and you have to pause for a moment because your useless bloodpusher is squeezing too tightly in your chest and the void feels huge now, threatening to draw you in but never making good on it. You're still standing, clutching at your chest when a hand falls on your shoulder and tugs you into a hive out of no where.

You hiss, fangs barred and fins flaring, turning to face your attacker. It's Karkat.

"Calm your tits seadouche. What the fuck were you doing outside so close to sunup, are you addled on spore or something?"

You laugh at the very notion that you would ruin your think pan with that swill, conveniently forgetting the sweep or so that you and Kanaya spent in a green tinted haze. You tell him you were just going for a walk. He thinks you're crazy but demands that you stay with him for the day, so that you don't die out in the sun. You tell him you don't want to keep him up, since you don't sleep much but he just waves you off and claims that he wasn't planning on sleeping for a while yet. He just started a movie and invites you to join him.

He's so similar to your Karkat and yet there are subtle differences. He doesn't sound like he's always shouting though his sentences are always peppered with profanity. He also loves romantic comedies but unlike his ancestor he doesn't think they're all amazing, in fact he admits that most of them are crap but he doesn't care. That's the beauty of them. You haven't seen anything new in a long time so you take a seat next to him on the pile and settle in.

There's something soothing about watching a movie like this. It's almost like your life never changed, like all that time was just a long dream and now you're awake and at your friend's house wishing you had the guts to kiss him. It's funny. Travelling all over the universe gave you the confidence to approach any troll except Karkat, either version of him. You're pathetic but that's okay because right now you're feeling whole. Even if this is a shitty movie. 

You're wrapped up in some stupid love triangle involving a far too flushed auspice and some teal blood when you feel the hands on your chin. Maybe you didn't have the courage but Karkat does, his lips covering your's in the warmest kiss you've ever had. That's all it took to break whatever spell was on you holding you back though. The movie is long forgotten as your tongues are exploring each other. His teeth are blunt, just like you imagined them to be and his hands find your horns. That gets you purring and loose limbed.

 

He tells you to just relax, to just let him treat you right. Says that you always look so melancholy whenever you come into his coffee shop and he just wants to make you smile. Your bloodpusher is breaking and healing all at once in some fucked up ache in your chest as you catch your fingers in his hair. His hands go for the buttons on your shirt, pulling them open one by one and smacking yours away when you try to go for his shirt. He pulls it off himself and he reminds you to just relax again. There's something so alien in his eyes, no one's ever looked at you like that. In this moment he's not a ghost of your Karkat, he is his own troll and you want to surrender to him so you do. 

His mouth is hot, so hot against your cool skin and he peels off the layers of your clothes one by one. He's got less scars on his smooth body and he's softer, not needing years of training to guard against the drones. He doesn't object when you run your fingers along his grey skin and you're struck by a realization. You haven't feed in a while now, long enough that when you feel his pulse under the pads of your fingertips your throat burns. You try to push it from your mind and just focus on the way his teeth are grazing over the gills on your neck. That seems to do the trick because your nook is dripping and your underwear is too tight for your bulge to unsheathe. 

He notices your predicament and palms you, making you chirp hungrily for him because fuck you need this, you need him and you don't care that he's not the troll you pined after for sweeps because he's himself and that's all you want right now. He teases you some more, until you're practically begging and when he pulls the elastic down to your knees your bulge unsheathes and makes a wet slapping sound against your legs. He laughs and remarks about how you've ruined the fabric with how wet you are but you don't care and you shut him up with your lips on his. He's okay with that and his pants join yours on the floor, bulges slick as they twine around each other eagerly. 

He doesn't seem to be able to wait anymore and that is more than okay with you because his bulge is burying itself in your nook. It takes him way too long to get himself seated to his root but it's a delicious kind of torture. He moves inside of you like he wants nothing more than to take you apart and you are more than willing to let him do that. You shift your legs, bringing them up and over his shoulders with ease, so he can get deeper still and like this he manages to pass over every pleasure node you want him to.   
  He sucks at the tines of your fins and at the gills on your neck and you start to loose yourself in the intoxicating feel of it all. Your talons drag lightly over his back and he arches into them, groaning with a particularly deep thrust. Your mouth hunts for his again, moaning against his lips before you taste him again. There's something so intimate about these sloppy kisses while he grinds into you, you've never been a fan of kissing while pailing before but this is too perfect to stop now. 

You're still pressing lips together when you come with a desperate cry of his name, spilling purple all over his pile without a thought. You should have warned him, let him get a bucket but you were too far gone into the heat of it to think of that until it was too late. He can't be too mad about it because he follows you into the afterglow a few moments later, filling your nook with his red. Instead of crying out he bit down on your lip. His teeth aren't that sharp but they're sharp enough to shred the soft flesh of your lip and let the salt of your blood explode over your tongue. 

You know better than to let yourself get hungry like this but you'd been so preoccupied you'd forgotten. Now he was paying the price, your fangs barred as you push him up and roll him onto his back. He looks surprised but not scared. Your body has a mind of it's own, your bulge thrashing between your legs as you lean in to lick a long line up his neck. Apparently his nook is wet because your bulge senses the heat of it and starts to bury itself within him. His talons break more skin on your shoulders as he curses under his breath. That almost makes you stop, almost but you're too caught up in the coppery scent that's trickling down your lips. 

There is a pause in your movements though and he's cursing at you, telling you not to stop so you don't. You're not as gentle or sweet as he was to you, the beast within you taking over as you run your tongue along the skin of his neck, just above a big vein you can feel throbbing with the pounding of his blood pusher. The speed in which you can feel his body starting to tense with a building orgasm is delicious, you want him to spill over so that his pulse is pumping furiously with the exertion. You want to feel him ripple around you so that you can follow over the edge again. 

Your prediction was right, it doesn't take long before Karkat is coming apart beneath you, nook gripping your bulge as you feel the slickness magnify. You follow suit, mimicking him in that you spill your purple still inside of him, your teeth breaking the skin on his neck. He makes a pained noise though he still looks as though he's in paradise and you suck at the crimson that's welling up on the surface of his flesh. You didn't pierce that deeply, he's not bleeding badly but the taste of him is heady, sweet and salty and sticky on your hungry tongue.

He groans, still caught up in the fog of it all for a bit before he realizes there's something wrong with what you're doing. His hands are trembling as they push up on you and you don't break away until he asks you what the fuck you're doing. You snap out of the trance that your blood had put you in, eyes wide in horror as you realize what you've done. You snatch at your clothes, sliding into pants without underwear, ignoring the disgusting sensation of damp fabric as you take off. You can hear him calling after you but he can't follow, not with the sun out.

He can see you now, for what you really are, pale and bright in the sunlight. You don't go back to the coffee shop or the library again. 

You spend the next undetermined number of days laying about your hive, out on the landings, on the floors, anywhere, letting time pass you by without bothering to count it. You can hear the chiming of your husktop occasionally. It's probably Kanaya. Or Karkat to yell at you about what a fucking freak you were. You don't actually know because you never check them and soon the sound of the chime has faded from your memory. You don't know if that's because they've stopped trying to reach you or if you just can't hear anything anymore. You know you can't feel anything anymore, the void in your bloodpusher making everything numb.

"Eridan. You are clearly being overdramatic. I can also see that you have been neglecting to eat. You are lucky I thought to pick you up a morsel on my way over." Kanaya finds you laying out on your roof, watching the moons drift by like the sun did before, book forgotten at your side. You tell her to fuck off but she won't take that for an answer insisting you go down and eat. She tells you that she finds the treat she brought to be exceedingly fascinating as well and says if you're careful and you don't kill them then you might get a good conversation or two out of them.

You stop at the base of the stares and turn to face Kanaya with eyes that are full of hurt and loss that you know she understands. She remarks that she stumbled across him quite by accident but when she started to speak with him she realized that he knew you and she made the decision that it would be in your best interest to speak with him. She also isn't pleased with how you failed to mention to him the nature of your being but she cleared that up for you. She shoves you into the room before disappearing up the stairs, her skin giving off a faint light to chase away shadows until she was gone. 

"I don't want to live forever. That seems like it would be fucking lonely. And boring." He's frowning at you as you slink over, wishing this was a moment you didn't have to have. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me you dumb shit? Though I can see why you liked me or whatever. She said you were flush for my ancestor, that you knew the original Karkat or whatever."

"I wwas in lovve wwith him." You won't deny that. "But you aren't him." His face falls and he looks like he's ready to leave before you spit out. "But I'm flush for you for bein' you." 

He waves you over to the pile he's been perched on and reminds you again he doesn't think there's anything that would make forever worth it but he's more than happy to give right now a try. But he needs to see you, the true you, the you that's ruined by the pumping of bloodpushers and the light of the sun. 

You guide him to your respiteblock, just so that you can peel away your shirt and your pants. You flicked the light off and let yourself shine the way all rainbow drinkers can and his eyes go wide at the sight of you. You're so pale, his hand cast in shadows when he runs it up along your torso. His eyes are wide and he almost looks like he's in awe. It takes him a few breaths to get out that you're beautiful and handsome and perfect. That they never got rainbow drinkers right in the movies. 

You're not sure when his shirt came off, when clothing became something that neither of you felt the need to wear but you're okay with that. Your mouth is on his skin, he's telling you not to hold back. To love him like the creature you are. You nip your way down his chest, small bites that barely bleed, sucking on flush to bring that beautiful red to the surface. He moans and gasps at every one, hands holding onto your horns for dear life. 

You lower yourself onto his bulge, nook dripping with anticipation, your dead bloodpusher sending purple and red through your veins right now. You feel loose and free and full of the drug that was his lips, his body, everything about him. You ride him like that, nook taking in every bit of him that you can, his hands catching on gills and fins in the most beautiful ways. His talons drag stinging welts to the surface of your skin, blemishing the white with your purple. The heat of it goes straight to your nook and you ripple around him as you feel yourself getting tense.

You manage to hold off on climaxing until you're sure he's ready to and when you let yourself go it's with your teeth sinking into the base of his neck again. This time he's excepting it though and it seems to make him shake with the force of his orgasm. He's a panting mess, tugging you down to hold onto you after he stops rocking into you. You go with no resistants, licking at the teethmarks that are still slowly dribbling. He gives a trembling sigh each time your tongue finds his warm skin. 

"You know what?" His voice is soft against your hair as he turns towards you. "Forever might actually be fucking worth that." 

He's not the Karkat you once knew, when you were still little more than a wriggler but he's perfect and he's yours. 


End file.
